LETTER: In praise of school nurses

On behalf of the Cumberland County School Nurses Association, I would like to recognize and celebrate school nurses throughout our area on May 9, National School Nurse Day. The theme this year is “School Nurses: Advocates for 21st Century Student Health.”

School nurses take on a wide variety of roles every day. For many children, the school nurse is the only health professional they may have access to, except in emergencies. According to the Centers for Disease Control, asthma is the leading chronic illness among children and adolescents in the United States. On average, in a classroom of 30 children, about three are likely to have asthma. Further, childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. Today, approximately one in every 400 children and adolescents has type 1 or type 2 diabetes. According to a study released in 2013 by the CDC, food allergies among children increased approximately 50 percent between 1997 and 2011.

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It makes a pretty good headline...school nurse saves the life of a little boy. It actually happened just last month.

School nurses develop, implement and monitor Individualized Healthcare Plans for these students. In addition, school nurses conduct health screenings including the monitoring of height, weight and blood pressure. They screen for vision, hearing and color vision defects and for curvature of the spine. They routinely care for ill and injured students, staff and visitors during the school day. School nurses plan for field trips and other out-of-school activities. It seems like common sense that healthier students are better learners. But evidence-based research in fields ranging from neuroscience and child development to epidemiology and public health supports this claim.

School nurses connect students and families with local healthcare resources. Oftentimes school nurses work with school administrators to establish partnerships with these local resources to provide services in our schools or offsite but during the school day. These partnerships increase access to care for our students and improve the health of our school communities.

Our school and elected officials must continue to invest in programs and services that improve the health and well-being of our students. School nurse staffing decisions need to be based upon more than just the number of students in our schools. Consideration needs to be given to the number of students with acute and chronic health concerns to insure that school nurses have workloads that are realistic, manageable and provide for safe school environments.

The membership of the Cumberland County School Nurses Association is dedicated to improving the health and educational outcomes for children and youth enrolled in our schools. Healthy kids do in fact make better learners.